5 ms·

How Tesla Fumbled

30 points by mike_d 4y ago

paulmendoza 4y ago
This channel is super frustrating to watch whenever I know a lot about the topic being discussed. They are video makers, not experts in the subject the video is about. Sort of like most journalists.
- adwn 4y ago
  Can you expand on that? Which parts did you find wrong or misleading?
  - panick21_ 4y ago
    Check out my comment, I spent way to long on it haha
  - throwntoday 4y ago
    It's clear that the video maker had an agenda and this is more of an Elon hit piece than a factual mini-doc on Tesla. He says the cybertruk is late but did clearly no research on why (battery/material/chip constraints, waiting on bespoke gigapress to even be produced for them) and their competitors have produced laughable numbers of trucks.
    - NineStarPoint 4y ago
      Why Tesla was late doesn't matter, it's still a fumble. If they can out produce the other manufactures in the coming years despite previous massive delays, then yes they could make up for that mistake given the competitors are also still in a ramping up phase. But they've allowed others to have a chance to catch up. And that's the general feeling I took away from this video. Not that Tesla is awful, or doomed to failure, but that they lost a chance to become undisputed king of the EV market. Instead, through a lot of small unforced errors they're probably just going to be one among many in the future. Maybe you think Tesla never had a chance to obtain a majority share of the market, or maybe you think Tesla still will end up being massively ahead of everyone else in the end, but I also tend towards believing that Tesla once had a chance to have more than 50% of the market and now will probably just sit in the 20% range when everything is done shaking out. Time will tell.
renewiltord 4y ago
Initial 10 seconds sound very much like generic YouTube spam. Can anyone who has watched this say something?
- DoingIsLearning 4y ago
  ChatGPT summary : The article discusses the challenges that Tesla is facing as it tries to maintain its position in the electric vehicle market. While Tesla's driving functions are reliable, the author argues that everything else about Tesla's cars is not, and that Tesla's customer service is inadequate. Furthermore, the author points out that Tesla is struggling to attract new customers, and that the company's product lineup is basic compared to its competitors. The author also notes that Tesla is facing significant competition in China, where homegrown companies are better able to meet the nuanced preferences of Chinese consumers. Overall, the article suggests that Tesla is facing significant challenges in maintaining its dominance in the electric vehicle market, and that the company will need to innovate and improve its customer service in order to stay ahead of the competition. edit: some valid points but it's mostly youtube spam not sure why it is on HN
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - kwere 4y ago
    it also says that Tesla didnt took full use of its lead position in the market compared to competitors, turning what could be a decade+ lead on everything to a few years leads in which established automakers can "quickly" catch up now. Also Cybertruck is a marketing failure as EV pickup market is already cornered by Ford, Rivian and e-Hummer
panick21_ 4y ago
Wendover is very hit and miss in general, but this seems just totally misleading. As the video goes on he makes some bad mistakes. But mostly its just looking for evidence you want to find. He has total misunderstand of economics of car market and the EV transition. I'm not really fan of Tesla, I don't drive (trains ftw) and I generally dislike cars and I would certainty never buy a Tesla even if I needed a car. I have invested in Tesla because I thought it was a good investment. This comment is not investing advice in any way, I am just point out some issues with the video from my analysis of the car market. Before addressing some of these issues raised in the video. Lets just get some basic facts down. Tesla is the largest BEV manufacture on the plant. They are the biggest consumers of batteries on the planet. They one of the most profitable car companies. And the have less debt then all the legacy manufactures. Tesla has grown fast every single quarter for many, many years now. During the Pandemic and chip shortage they grew. And not only did they grow, the retired debt, increase cash position and made major investments for future growth. Some of the worlds largest EV manufacturing facilities are still in the ramp and Tesla is very, very like to continue growing for quite a while yet. Tesla Semi in Nevada will be another major product that is also ramping. So to say that a company who even in 2017 was seen a tiny upstart that would get 'crushed' when the legacy manufactures finally started moving on EVs. Bob Lutz from GM basically declared them dead and called EVs a 'bad' business. This was literally 5-6 years ago, that these thoughts were prevalent. Here their revenue growth, and profit of course grew far better: > Tesla's revenue growth for fiscal years ending December 2018 to 2022 averaged 49.5%. To claim that such a company 'Fumbled it' requires really strong evidence, but the video doesn't really provide it at all. Please show me a historical comparison where a manufacturing company grew faster (outside of war). There might be few, but not many. The points raised: ---------------------------------------- - Quality issue Beyond the 'this is what I saw when I googled' nonsense. This is the most valid point raised, and even then it isn't great. The only quantitative analysis was one consumer report. In that report Tesla didn't to great but many other of the supposedly luxury manufactures weren't much better. In fact some of those that did the best were just old cars that were in production for a decades mostly unchained. I believe if I remember correctly Jeep was on top. Further, this was a US only report, testing cars from one plant and that was also already a while ago. Generally we get less reports of such issues reported from the plant in China and Berlin. If you want to tell me that this is really a systematic large scale issue, please show me some better data. If their cars were so bad and they have to fix so many things, why is their service business not a huge cashleak? ---------------------------------------- - Deliver issue - Service issue Service and Deliveries, these are signs of success. A company that is growing so fast its almost practically impossible to scale those things as fast. Opening Service centers, building supercharges and distribution centers is hard, they require local politics and a lot of people all over the world. Tesla has been ramping all of these things very, very fast just not quite as fast as their cars. Lets look at the numbers yearly numbers up to last year: Store and service locations 378 433 523 644 764 Mobile service fleet(2) 411 758 894 1,281 1,584 Supercharger stations 1,421 1,821 2,564 3,476 4,678 Supercharger connectors 12,002 16,104 23,277 31,498 42,419 How much faster realistically could they have grown these things? They are clearly trying to grow all these things quickly on all of these have accelerating growth. Maybe had they really pushed and focus they could have done a little better. But then again nobody else in the world is close to having a mobile service fleet that large or a supercharger netwrok. And to explain how wrong this is in more detail, having to relay on Dealers and 3rd party service is a huge benefit for Tesla. And literally ever car company in the world to kill to have it. People who don't know the car industry don't understand this, dealers make a lot of money that not going to car companies. Car companies already make a large share of their profits on service parts (without most of them couldn't survive) and would make even more if they had control over it. Basically most car companies are basically copying Tesla and is fighting its dealers. Telsa had to do Service under warranty as a lose, and only last year that Service finally was not below zero. As increasingly more Teslas come of warranty, this former weakness of Tesla will turn into a hugely profitable business of its own. That it is already profitable despite there being so few old Tesla on the road is actually remarkable.
amir734jj 4y ago
The problem with Tesla right now is Elon Musk. I know a few people FIRST HAND who sold their Tesla or decided to buy a different brand EV because of Elon's behavior. I doubt conservatives are interested in EV market. Liberals were Elon's core loyal customer. That's my 2 cents.
- cbeach 4y ago
  As a counterpoint, I know people first hand who admired what Elon did for freedom of expression on social media, and now they are more familiar with, and willing to buy, a Tesla. Perhaps it’s not obvious to those in the Californian tech bubble, but First Amendment rights matter a lot to the rest of America. By becoming the richest man in the world, and now the most notable man in social media, Elon has brought huge brand awareness of Tesla. And most people aren’t so politically tribal that they would choose an inferior BEV because “elon bad”
  - intellix 4y ago
    Freedom of speech but then silences who he wants. I was also interested in a Tesla due to full self driving capabilities but seems that was a lie as well.
    - kwere 4y ago
      FSD is the closest thing on the market to a real self driving through marketing was misleading. Tik Tok sleeping people on the highways is a dystopic byproduct of its result. FSD seems safer than average human driver now[0], good enough one could say but the legislator and the media seems biased towards a zero accidents safe, wich could be years or decades away [0]https://www.tesmanian.com/blogs/tesmanian-blog/tesla-autopilot-is-x9-safer-tesla-vehicles-are-x2-safer-than-cars-of-other-brands https://www.tesmanian.com/blogs/tesmanian-blog/tesla-autopil...
      - keneda7 4y ago
        I am not sure for how much longer that will remain true. Mercedes seems to be getting closer and closer. https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/27/23572942/mercedes-drive-pilot-level-3-approved-nevada https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/27/23572942/mercedes-drive-p...
ZeroGravitas 4y ago
I wouldn't say Tesla fumbled. The USA and Japan and to a lesser extent the EU fumbled the EV transition badly. This left a wide opening for China that it looks like they will profit immensely from. They will make the batteries and the cars and motors and the renewables that power them and buy up the empty shells of western automakers.

30 points by mike_d 4y ago

This channel is super frustrating to watch whenever I know a lot about the topic being discussed. They are video makers, not experts in the subject the video is about. Sort of like most journalists.

adwn 4y ago
Can you expand on that? Which parts did you find wrong or misleading?
- panick21_ 4y ago
  Check out my comment, I spent way to long on it haha
- throwntoday 4y ago
  It's clear that the video maker had an agenda and this is more of an Elon hit piece than a factual mini-doc on Tesla. He says the cybertruk is late but did clearly no research on why (battery/material/chip constraints, waiting on bespoke gigapress to even be produced for them) and their competitors have produced laughable numbers of trucks.
  - NineStarPoint 4y ago
    Why Tesla was late doesn't matter, it's still a fumble. If they can out produce the other manufactures in the coming years despite previous massive delays, then yes they could make up for that mistake given the competitors are also still in a ramping up phase. But they've allowed others to have a chance to catch up. And that's the general feeling I took away from this video. Not that Tesla is awful, or doomed to failure, but that they lost a chance to become undisputed king of the EV market. Instead, through a lot of small unforced errors they're probably just going to be one among many in the future. Maybe you think Tesla never had a chance to obtain a majority share of the market, or maybe you think Tesla still will end up being massively ahead of everyone else in the end, but I also tend towards believing that Tesla once had a chance to have more than 50% of the market and now will probably just sit in the 20% range when everything is done shaking out. Time will tell.

renewiltord 4y ago

Initial 10 seconds sound very much like generic YouTube spam. Can anyone who has watched this say something?

DoingIsLearning 4y ago
ChatGPT summary : The article discusses the challenges that Tesla is facing as it tries to maintain its position in the electric vehicle market. While Tesla's driving functions are reliable, the author argues that everything else about Tesla's cars is not, and that Tesla's customer service is inadequate. Furthermore, the author points out that Tesla is struggling to attract new customers, and that the company's product lineup is basic compared to its competitors. The author also notes that Tesla is facing significant competition in China, where homegrown companies are better able to meet the nuanced preferences of Chinese consumers. Overall, the article suggests that Tesla is facing significant challenges in maintaining its dominance in the electric vehicle market, and that the company will need to innovate and improve its customer service in order to stay ahead of the competition. edit: some valid points but it's mostly youtube spam not sure why it is on HN
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- kwere 4y ago
  it also says that Tesla didnt took full use of its lead position in the market compared to competitors, turning what could be a decade+ lead on everything to a few years leads in which established automakers can "quickly" catch up now. Also Cybertruck is a marketing failure as EV pickup market is already cornered by Ford, Rivian and e-Hummer

panick21_ 4y ago

Wendover is very hit and miss in general, but this seems just totally misleading. As the video goes on he makes some bad mistakes. But mostly its just looking for evidence you want to find. He has total misunderstand of economics of car market and the EV transition. I'm not really fan of Tesla, I don't drive (trains ftw) and I generally dislike cars and I would certainty never buy a Tesla even if I needed a car. I have invested in Tesla because I thought it was a good investment. This comment is not investing advice in any way, I am just point out some issues with the video from my analysis of the car market. Before addressing some of these issues raised in the video. Lets just get some basic facts down. Tesla is the largest BEV manufacture on the plant. They are the biggest consumers of batteries on the planet. They one of the most profitable car companies. And the have less debt then all the legacy manufactures. Tesla has grown fast every single quarter for many, many years now. During the Pandemic and chip shortage they grew. And not only did they grow, the retired debt, increase cash position and made major investments for future growth. Some of the worlds largest EV manufacturing facilities are still in the ramp and Tesla is very, very like to continue growing for quite a while yet. Tesla Semi in Nevada will be another major product that is also ramping. So to say that a company who even in 2017 was seen a tiny upstart that would get 'crushed' when the legacy manufactures finally started moving on EVs. Bob Lutz from GM basically declared them dead and called EVs a 'bad' business. This was literally 5-6 years ago, that these thoughts were prevalent. Here their revenue growth, and profit of course grew far better: > Tesla's revenue growth for fiscal years ending December 2018 to 2022 averaged 49.5%. To claim that such a company 'Fumbled it' requires really strong evidence, but the video doesn't really provide it at all. Please show me a historical comparison where a manufacturing company grew faster (outside of war). There might be few, but not many. The points raised: ---------------------------------------- - Quality issue Beyond the 'this is what I saw when I googled' nonsense. This is the most valid point raised, and even then it isn't great. The only quantitative analysis was one consumer report. In that report Tesla didn't to great but many other of the supposedly luxury manufactures weren't much better. In fact some of those that did the best were just old cars that were in production for a decades mostly unchained. I believe if I remember correctly Jeep was on top. Further, this was a US only report, testing cars from one plant and that was also already a while ago. Generally we get less reports of such issues reported from the plant in China and Berlin. If you want to tell me that this is really a systematic large scale issue, please show me some better data. If their cars were so bad and they have to fix so many things, why is their service business not a huge cashleak? ---------------------------------------- - Deliver issue - Service issue Service and Deliveries, these are signs of success. A company that is growing so fast its almost practically impossible to scale those things as fast. Opening Service centers, building supercharges and distribution centers is hard, they require local politics and a lot of people all over the world. Tesla has been ramping all of these things very, very fast just not quite as fast as their cars. Lets look at the numbers yearly numbers up to last year: Store and service locations 378 433 523 644 764 Mobile service fleet(2) 411 758 894 1,281 1,584 Supercharger stations 1,421 1,821 2,564 3,476 4,678 Supercharger connectors 12,002 16,104 23,277 31,498 42,419 How much faster realistically could they have grown these things? They are clearly trying to grow all these things quickly on all of these have accelerating growth. Maybe had they really pushed and focus they could have done a little better. But then again nobody else in the world is close to having a mobile service fleet that large or a supercharger netwrok. And to explain how wrong this is in more detail, having to relay on Dealers and 3rd party service is a huge benefit for Tesla. And literally ever car company in the world to kill to have it. People who don't know the car industry don't understand this, dealers make a lot of money that not going to car companies. Car companies already make a large share of their profits on service parts (without most of them couldn't survive) and would make even more if they had control over it. Basically most car companies are basically copying Tesla and is fighting its dealers. Telsa had to do Service under warranty as a lose, and only last year that Service finally was not below zero. As increasingly more Teslas come of warranty, this former weakness of Tesla will turn into a hugely profitable business of its own. That it is already profitable despite there being so few old Tesla on the road is actually remarkable.

amir734jj 4y ago

The problem with Tesla right now is Elon Musk. I know a few people FIRST HAND who sold their Tesla or decided to buy a different brand EV because of Elon's behavior. I doubt conservatives are interested in EV market. Liberals were Elon's core loyal customer. That's my 2 cents.

cbeach 4y ago
As a counterpoint, I know people first hand who admired what Elon did for freedom of expression on social media, and now they are more familiar with, and willing to buy, a Tesla. Perhaps it’s not obvious to those in the Californian tech bubble, but First Amendment rights matter a lot to the rest of America. By becoming the richest man in the world, and now the most notable man in social media, Elon has brought huge brand awareness of Tesla. And most people aren’t so politically tribal that they would choose an inferior BEV because “elon bad”
- intellix 4y ago
  Freedom of speech but then silences who he wants. I was also interested in a Tesla due to full self driving capabilities but seems that was a lie as well.
  - kwere 4y ago
    FSD is the closest thing on the market to a real self driving through marketing was misleading. Tik Tok sleeping people on the highways is a dystopic byproduct of its result. FSD seems safer than average human driver now[0], good enough one could say but the legislator and the media seems biased towards a zero accidents safe, wich could be years or decades away [0]https://www.tesmanian.com/blogs/tesmanian-blog/tesla-autopilot-is-x9-safer-tesla-vehicles-are-x2-safer-than-cars-of-other-brands https://www.tesmanian.com/blogs/tesmanian-blog/tesla-autopil...
    - keneda7 4y ago
      I am not sure for how much longer that will remain true. Mercedes seems to be getting closer and closer. https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/27/23572942/mercedes-drive-pilot-level-3-approved-nevada https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/27/23572942/mercedes-drive-p...

ZeroGravitas 4y ago

I wouldn't say Tesla fumbled. The USA and Japan and to a lesser extent the EU fumbled the EV transition badly. This left a wide opening for China that it looks like they will profit immensely from. They will make the batteries and the cars and motors and the renewables that power them and buy up the empty shells of western automakers.